A poster on NSBB.com did the legwork for this data:

BABIP is batting average on balls in play. Basically, this is a measure of how often the ball falls in for a hit when you put it in play (in other words, anything the defense can make a play on. Not strikeouts or home runs, for instance). There are quite a few factors that can determine a player's BABIP. Obviously, the defense, whether or not you hit the ball on the ground, on a line, or in the air are the big ones. But speed, ballpark, and even simple luck can all make some significant differences as well. If we can isolate most of those variables, we can figure out whether or not a player was getting robbed because his line drives were getting hit right at people, or whether he just got lucky that his bloopers fell in juuuuust out of reach of a defender's glove way more often than you can expect from him going forward.


Player - Geovany Soto
Actual Line - .218/.321/.381
Expected Line - .269/.365/.450
Comments - Just like I said last time, his sophomore slump is grossly overstated. He's a fine young catcher who just had terrible luck this year.

Player - Derrek Lee
Actual Line - .306/.393/.579
Expected line - .293/.382/.561
Comments - His great season looks a bit less impressive in this light, but not by enough to make me any less excited about his resurgence.

Player - Mike Fontenot
Actual Line - .236/.301/.377
Expected line - .268/.329/.418
Comments - Nasty slump and a touch of bad luck. I expect better next season, but we should be looking at external options for our 2010 starter.

Player - Jeff Baker
Actual Line - .288/.343/.425
Expected line - .260/.318/.389
Comments - Can we please put to rest the idea that Baker deserves a real shot at the starting job next season? He had a nice, luck-powered streak in Chicago, but he's the short side of a platoon player and occasional backup at 3B.

Player - Ryan Theriot
Actual Line - .284/.343/.369
Expected line - .294/.352/.381
Comments - Missing a handful of hits.

Player - Aramis Ramirez
Actual Line - .317/.389/.516
Expected line - .290/.365/.484
Comments - Not a whole lot to say. He was about what you'd expect from him if you factor in a nasty shoulder injury costing him half the season. He was a bit lucky, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him keep putting up his actual line anyways once his shoulder gets healthy again.

Player - Alfonso Soriano
Actual Line - .241/.303/.423
Expected line - .260/.320/.447
Comments - Somewhat comforting to think the decline wasn't quite as steep as it looked, but it's still a pretty bad line from a player who is getting older and showing serious injury concerns.

Player - Kosuke Fukudome
Actual Line - .257/.375/.421
Expected line - .279/.392/.462
Comments - Fukudome suffers the most from the new methodology (although that september swoon didn't help). Still, a pretty good season turns into an all-star one.

Player - Milton Bradley
Actual Line - .257/.378/.397
Expected line - .268/.387/.411
Comments - We all knew he hadn't had any problems getting on base, and while he was slightly unlucky in that regard, adjusting for luck doesn't do anything to give him back any of his power outage.


I'm not sure how much stock I put into these numbers, but I think it could be a valuable piece of evidence along with other measures in determining player performance and offensive production. Obviously DLee and Aram to a lesser extent performed well above their projections, but I believe that Fuk/Riot and especially Soto hitting to their projections would more than counteract that for 2010.

Soriano will continue to be a giant black hole. Based solely off these stats, it's reasonable to surmise that obviously barring injuries etc, the 2010 Cubs offense will be improved solely by luck and law of averages.

Mostly just missing baseball a lot with the abortion going on in Halas Hall.

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Team Cutler.

thank you for posting this...

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Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

Bench players added in now:

Player - Koyie Hill
Actual Line - .237/.312/.324
Expected Line - .243/.317/.332
Comments - A hit and a half off.

Player - Jake Fox
Actual Line - .259/.311/.468
Expected Line - .275/.325/.488
Comments - Looking a bit better.

Player - Micah Hoffpauir
Actual Line - .239/.300/.427
Expected Line - .259/.317/.453
Comments - He wasn't ever going to keep up that 40% line drive rate he had in 2008. This is more like what you'll see from him, which isn't bad for a bench guy making the league minimum.

Player - Andres Blanco
Actual Line - .252/.303/.341
Expected Line - .280/.329/.377
Comments - Blanco has been below his expected line in 2005 and 2006 as well (he didn't play in the majors in 07 or 08). If he can start actually putting up the line he should be, he could be a quality SS considering his glove. He'll be 26 next year and entering his prime, so I might not place a nice career beyond him just yet.

Player - Aaron Miles
Actual Line - .185/.224/.242
Expected Line - .271/.306/.355
Comments - We all knew that there was no way that anybody could really be that bad, but even adjusting his line up by 100 points doesn't make it look anything but crappy. Another cautionary tale of paying too much for a player without a real skillset to speak of.

Player - Bobby Scales
Actual Line - .242/.312/.411
Expected Line - .254/.323/.429
Comments - It was a fun little story to have him called up finally at age 31. And he certainly held his own, though I sincerely doubt he's capable of putting up a .200 IsoP year after year.

Player - Sam Fuld
Actual Line - .299/.409/.412
Expected Line - .299/.409/.412
Comments - He is missing out on nine-thousandths of a single hit using this methodology. While I don't think he can keep putting up a LD% of 24.7%, he's our best internal option if we absolutely must send Milton Bradley packing.

Player - Reed Johnson
Actual Line - .255/.330/.412
Expected Line - .281/.353/.448
Comments - Yet another in a long line of our players missing out on 3-5 hits. In his case, it may have been enough that he'll have lowered his price and return to the team next year.

Player - Tyler Colvin
Actual Line - .176/.250/.176
Expected Line - .272/.331/.272
Comments - Normally I wouldn't bother on a guy with 20 PA, but this is the closest thing to a real prospect we brought up last season and he hit the ball well enough for those 20 PA that he should have gotten another hit or two.

And a bonus player!

Player - Carlos Zambrano
Actual Line - .217/.225/464
Expected Line - .237/.245/.493
Comments - Carlos was robbed!

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Team Cutler.

Just looking at these again today, I think it's time to consider the very real possibility of an outfield of Soriano/Fuld/Fukudome. Especially with no arb offered to Harden, clearly the organization is getting tighter with money and Fuld is obviously the best(cheapest) in house option. If we do go with Fuld, I really hope Jim can sign a serviceable 4th/5th starter and a SS/2B man.

If Fuld can hit .300 for an entire year with above average defense..well better than Milton.

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Team Cutler.